The protozoan parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, causes the fatal form of human malaria and it is responsible for over one million deaths among African children annually. Although normally transmitted by the bite of a mosquito vector, malaria can also be transmitted through the transfusion of blood from asymptomatic donors.
It would be useful to have a method of inactivating protozoa, such as Plasmodium falciparum, in whole blood and cellular blood products, such as red cells (Chojnacki et al., New Engl. J. Med.279: 984-985, 1968 and Grant et al., Lancet II 469-491, 1960).